


The Stag and the Swan

by White_Squirrel



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Hogsmeade, Hogwarts Fifth Year, Slightly Smarter Harry, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-20
Updated: 2018-03-20
Packaged: 2019-04-04 23:19:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14031036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/White_Squirrel/pseuds/White_Squirrel
Summary: One shot. Harry’s Valentine’s Day date with Cho goes a little better.





	The Stag and the Swan

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns Harry Potter, Cho Chang, and all other characters named herein.
> 
> Parts of this story are quoted from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
> 
> The Harry/Cho 'ship is surprisingly rare. I admit it might not have been the most functional relationship, but it could work. For example, what if Harry had been just a bit quicker on the uptake on Valentine’s Day?

_“Er…listen, d’you want to come with me to the Three Broomsticks at lunchtime? I’m meeting Hermione Granger there.”_

_Cho raised her eyebrows._

_“You’re meeting Hermione Granger? Today?”_

_“Yeah. Well, she asked me to, so I thought I would. D’you want to come with me? She said it wouldn’t matter if you did.”_

_“Oh…well…that was nice of her.”_

_But Cho did not sound as though she thought it was nice at all; on the contrary, her tone was cold and all of a sudden she looked rather forbidding._ Harry figured that Cho didn’t appreciate Hermione interrupting their date, so he tried to assuage her concerns. “Sorry,” he said, “it’s just that she said it’s really important, so I figured…” He looked over to make sure Roger Davies and his girlfriend weren’t eavesdropping and leaned in close, whispering, “it’s probably about the D.A. or something.”

Cho raised her eyebrows again, and she seemed to be weighing the possibilities in her mind, but she didn’t say anything just then.

Harry Potter never thought it would be so awkward being on a date with a girl. He found himself drinking his coffee very fast to distract himself from all the kissing going on in Madam Puddifoot’s Tea Shop. Not that he wasn’t interested in kissing—quite the contrary—but after their wet, tearful kiss at Christmas, not to mention all that stuff Hermione had said about Cho’s messed-up emotional state, he had a bad feeling that it wouldn’t end well.

It didn’t help that the only date Harry had been on before was the disastrous Yule Ball mess with Parvati, so he could be forgiven by thinking he couldn’t measure up to the standard of Roger and his girlfriend, who seemed to be spending more time snogging than drinking tea.

He noticed Cho’s hand on the table. He could at least reach out and hold her hand, couldn’t he? She surely wouldn’t have a problem with it. _Everyone_ in the shop was doing that. But just as he went to move his hand, Cho took hers off the table, looking oblivious to Harry’s move and focusing on Roger.

_“He asked me out, you know,” she said in a quiet voice. “A couple of weeks ago. Roger. I turned him down, though.”_

That didn’t exactly instill Harry with confidence. He was glad she’d turned him down, but they’d already agreed on their own date by then. It would have been common courtesy to turn Roger down—or at least he hoped it would. Was this about the kissing? Was she trying to get him to kiss her…like _that?_ He tried to finish off his coffee and let it pass without comment, but one of those stupid cherubs overhead threw a handful of confetti into his dregs.

_“I came in here with Cedric last year,” said Cho._

Harry’s heart sank even lower, and despite the steaminess of the shop, he suddenly felt very cold inside. Why did she have to bring up Cedric? Surely, she knew all it would do would be to cause both of them a lot of hurt. Was she hoping he could somehow measure up to Cedric—he of the devilishly handsome looks and top-notch magical skills? Couldn’t they just have a normal, low-pressure date? Or did he just not get this dating thing?

But she didn’t seem to be comparing him to Cedric, though she _did_ want to talk about him for some reason: _“I’ve been meaning to ask you for ages…Did Cedric—did he m-m-mention me at all before he died?”_

“Well—no—it was all too fast. There wasn’t time to say anything…” Harry trailed off uncomfortably. That wasn’t entirely true, he thought guiltily. He remembered, as sure as if he were there again, when Cedric’s…spirit? When he had emerged from Voldemort’s wand and spoken to him: _“Harry…take my body back, will you? Take my body back to my parents…”_ True, there hadn’t been much time then, either, but he could’ve added a quick “And tell Cho I love her.” In retrospect, Harry wasn’t sure why he hadn’t done when it was plain even to him that she had been in love with Cedric. But he wisely kept that to himself. He may have been an idiot when it came to girls, but he was smart enough not to cause her that kind of pain.

“I…I was hoping…” she stammered.

Harry didn’t see how this could get much worse. He shook his head: “Voldemort’s not big on sentimentality.”

That was clearly the wrong thing to say. Cho squeaked in fright at the sound of Voldemort’s name. Even after this many months with the D.A. Harry just couldn’t spare much patience for people who were afraid to say it. “Sorry,” he said, trying to sound sincere. “Look, do we have to talk about Cedric right now?”

_“I thought,” she said, tears spattering down onto the table. “I thought_ you’d _u-u-understand! I_ need _to talk about it! Surely you n-need to talk about it t-too! I mean, you saw it happen, didn_ _’t you?”_

_Everything was going nightmarishly wrong; Roger Davies_ _’ girlfriend had even unglued herself to look around at Cho crying._

_“Well—I have talked about it,” Harry said in a whisper, “to Ron and Hermione, but—”_

_“Oh, you’ll talk to Hermione Granger!” she said shrilly, her face now shining with tears, and several more kissing couples broke apart to stare. “But you won’t talk to me! P-perhaps it would be best if we just…just p-paid and you went and met up with Hermione G-Granger, like you obviously want to!”_

“What?” Harry said in bewilderment. “No! I don’t want to! I wanted to spend the whole day with you. I told her I did.”

“Well, why are you trotting off to be with her, then?” Cho snapped angrily.

“I told you. She asked me—” Harry stopped and tried to change course in mid-sentence. He was starting to catch on to why Cho was so upset. “She told me it was really important. She said I could bring you along, but I had to be there.”

“But what’s so important about it? What’s she up to?”

“I don’t know. She wouldn’t tell me.”

Cho scoffed loudly. “That doesn’t seem very friendly, interrupting your day and telling you what to do without even telling you why,” she said waspishly.

“I know, she does that to me _all the time_. It can get really annoying.” _Almost as annoying as when Dumbledore does it_ , he thought. “But I know Hermione. She wouldn’t try to interrupt our date unless it was something really important. She’s not like that. It’s gotta be something about the war or the—” He glanced around at the people staring at them. “—the you-know-what.”

“And it couldn’t wait till some other time?” she sniffed.

“Hermione didn’t seem to think so,” Harry said. Cho started to scowl again. “Look, Cho, would you _please_ just come with me? Maybe if we go as a couple, we can get rid of her faster.” He wasn’t sure where that came from, but it sounded like something that might actually help, for a change.

As it turned out, it was. Cho had looked like she’d been on the verge of walking out on him, but at that, she seemed to partially relax and settle back in her seat. “Alright, I suppose I can come along if I must,” she said grudgingly.

“Thank you, Cho. I really appreciate it.”

Their date was salvaged for the moment—barely. Cho was so flustered over Hermione that she forgot to ask about Cedric again. Harry couldn’t believe she would be jealous of Hermione. He’d very nearly laughed out loud when he realised it, and now that he thought about it, he was glad he hadn’t. That probably would have made him look even more insensitive or some such.

Why she wanted to talk about Cedric in the first place he couldn’t fathom. Dragging up the subject only seemed to turn her into a human hosepipe. It must be a girl thing, he decided, but he kept up a cheerful expression. It wasn’t easy; they made very awkward conversation for several more minutes, neither of them really knowing what to talk about. Harry had never really appreciated before how cloistered life at Hogwarts was. In the muggle world, they could talk about books or movies (except he wasn’t well-versed in those either), or the news, or the latest gossip about people in the town, and so forth. But at Hogwarts, they had no movies and a lot fewer books; the news was all bad, and they had very little contact with the rest of the wizarding community. And as for social life, Hogwarts itself was light on clubs, and even lighter under Umbridge’s reign of terror.

At least that was how Harry saw it. Cho seemed to want to spend a lot of time talking about girls.

“Do you know if Hermione Granger has ever been here with anyone?” she asked.

Harry started laughing, but trailed off when Cho glared at him. “I don’t think Hermione is the kind of girl who would appreciate this place,” he explained.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean she’s very…practical. She doesn’t go for all of this frilly stuff so much.”

“Oh? And what do _you_ think of it, Harry?”

For all his cluelessness, even Harry could tell that was a question he needed to tread carefully around. “Well…I could do without the confetti in my coffee,” he said.

To his immense relief, Cho giggled and agreed with him on that point. But just the same, his weak skills at talking to a girl made the whole thing a lot less comfortable than he expected. They left the shop a little while later and started wandering about the village, but he was glad when the time came to go to whatever Hermione was up to.

“We should probably go if we want to get to the Three Broomsticks on time,” he said as soon as he felt it was safe.

“Oh, very well,” Cho said, still not looking very happy about the arrangement. They walked to the three broomsticks side by side in the rain, still not touching. Harry wished he’d brought an umbrella. That would give him a safe excuse to hold her hand, too. However, when they got to the Three Brooksticks, Cho pulled out her wand and waved it in the same complicated pattern that Hermione had used to produce a stream of hot air and dried out her own robes, then Harry’s.

“Thanks,” Harry said. “I’m gonna have to remember that one.” He quickly looked around the room, but Hermione was nowhere to be found. He did see Hagrid sitting in the corner, looking morose. The half-giant seemed to have picked up a few more bruises. Harry was about to go over and talk to him when he heard a voice calling from the other side of the room.

“Harry! Harry, Cho, over here!”

Hermione was waving to them. He hadn’t noticed her at first glance in the far corner of the crowded pub. He motioned for Cho to follow and made his way towards her, but when he got there, he saw that she wasn’t alone. Hermione had acquired two of the most unlikely drinking mates imaginable: Luna Lovegood, daughter of the editor of the _Quibbler_ , whom Hermione thought father and daughter both were barmy; and Rita Skeeter, the former gossip columnist for the _Daily Prophet_ who had put Hermione through the wringer last year until Hermione had caught her for an unregistered animagus. And here she was sitting calming, sharing a gillywater with the two of them, and making it clear she was the one in control.

“Harry, thank you so much for coming,” she said. “And Cho, how are you doing?”

“Fine.”

“Cho?” Rita said, staring eagerly at the young couple. “Here with Harry, are you?”

“Harry’s love life is none of your business,” Hermione said, “so you can drop the Quick-Quotes Quill right now.”

Rita withdrew her hand from her bag with a disappointed look on her face.

“What are you up to?” Harry said, letting his gaze drift over Hermione, then Luna, then and Rita. He didn’t sit down.

“Well, for some inexplicable reason, Miss Prissy here wants me to report what you say about He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named,” Rita said, disgust rising in her voice. “And she’s expecting me to do it for _free_ , _and_ to print it in the _Quibbler_. Not that I’ve got any choice, since she’s got the dirt on me.”

Harry froze. He turned slowly to Hermione and Luna. “You…you want me to talk about Voldemort?” he said. Rita and Cho both flinched, but Hermione looked resolute, and Luna seemed completely oblivious. The idea made him rather uncomfortable, but he didn’t want to admit it. Eventually, he settled on, “Do you really think that’ll help?”

“Yes, I do, Harry,” Hermione said. “A lot of people will believe the _Daily Prophet_ no matter what, but their version of the Azkaban breakout has some pretty glaring holes—enough to make people start asking questions. If there’s a better explanation out there, even if it’s in a…” She glanced at Luna. “…an _unusual_ magazine, I think they’ll pay attention. I’m sorry to put you on the spot like this, but I didn’t want Umbridge to get wind of it. Are you ready to tell the public the truth, Harry?”

“I…I suppose,” he said.

But before the interview could begin, he heard Cho make a tutting sound. He turned and saw the disapproval on her face, and he realised his mistake.

“Hold on,” he stopped them. “Could we have a minute in private, please?”

Hermione sighed slightly. “Fine, but don’t take too long. We don’t have a lot of time today.”

“Thanks, Hermione.” Harry stepped away from the table and made sure they got out of earshot of Rita and her Quick-Quotes Quill. “Cho,” he started. “I didn’t mean—”

“So, you’ll even talk to the press if _she_ asks you to?”

“No! I mean—This isn’t about Hermione. This is about fighting Voldemort and the Ministry’s lies. I’d still do it if it were—” He stopped; he was going to say “just Luna,” but he caught himself. “—Ron or Neville or anybody else.”

Cho crossed her arms and started to turn away.

“Cho, wait! I…I’m sorry,” Harry stammered. She stopped and looked back at him again. “I should’ve talked to you about that night, okay? If I’d known this was coming, I would’ve. This isn’t really how I’d want to…”

“I should hope not.”

“I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just that…I didn’t want to talk about it because…well, it’s hard for me to talk about my feelings. I grew up in a home where it…wasn’t appreciated.”

That gave Cho some pause. What did that mean? What was Harry Potter’s life like if it wasn’t the life of a great hero? “What do you mean, it wasn’t appreciated?” she asked suspiciously, though part of her was trying to sound supportive. Something didn’t seem right here.

Harry almost gave it up right then and there. Even speaking quietly so that the other patrons couldn’t overhear him, it was incredibly hard talking about his relatives to a girl he hardly knew. But something in him was determined to salvage this date, so he mustered up his Gryffindor courage and said, “I mean I grew up with muggles who can’t stand magic and can’t stand me. I mean I had nightmares about that night last summer, and my cousin’s response was…” He stopped, worried how Cho would react to Dudley’s words.

“What?” she demanded.

Harry looked down, his face burning with shame. “He made fun of me…” He did his best imitation of Dudley’s stupid voice: _“‘Don’t kill Cedric! Don’t kill Cedric!” Who’s Cedric—your boyfriend?’”_

Cho gasped, and tears started to form in her eyes. She couldn’t believe Harry had grown up with such horribly insensitive people. It was no wonder he acted so clueless. At least he was _trying_ to be nice. And if she were honest with herself, she could speak a lot more highly of him than that. “What about…your friends,” she asked, stopping herself from singling out Granger.

“Yeah. I talked to Hermione— _and_ Ron—because we’ve been friends for over four years, and it’s taken me that long to get so comfortable with them. Honestly, they’re like the brother and sister I never had.” Cho got an appraising expression on her face at this. “And as for you, we’ve never really talked much. I don’t know you all that well—but I’d like to get to know you better.”

She actually smiled a little at that: “That’s good, Harry. I really appreciate it. But I’d like to get to know you better, too, and if…if You-Know-Who is really back, and if you’re fighting against him, what could be more important than what happened that night?”

“I know. You’re right,” he conceded. “If we’re going to make this—us—work, we need to be able to talk to each other. But this isn’t how I want to do it.”

“But we _need_ to get through this _now_ , Harry! Don’t you see?” Cho started crying again, her voice rising in pitch.

Harry tried to cut off her hysterics: “Yes, but—look, I really don’t want to talk to the press in general or Rita Skeeter in particular. I’m only doing this to try to convince people of the truth and maybe save some lives. And…and, honestly? This is going to be incredibly hard for me. I can tell it’s going to be hard for you, too, but for a different reason. It’ll be hard for me because I have a hard time talking about _anything_ in my private life, on top of how painful this is for both of us. You…you can still join in if you want to, but I’d much rather do this in private. Plus, Rita’s sure to ask some nasty questions about yours and my and Cedric’s relationship. So if you want to back out now, you can, and…and we can go over the whole thing later with just the two of us. Promise.”

Cho thought about this for a minute—actually _really_ thought about it. She was starting to see why they hadn’t seen eye to eye earlier. She wanted so badly to talk about Cedric, but at the same time, it did make her uncomfortable when Harry put it like that. Was she really only getting close to him because of Cedric? And was that why she was being so sensitive about Granger, who was, objectively, no competition for her?

She stopped herself before she tied herself up in knots. What she really needed was closure, and the sooner the better. She’d never be able to understand how she felt without that. And there was definitely a part of her that didn’t want to give Harry any more opportunities to back out of it. “No,” she said. “I might as well listen in. It’ll be in that magazine anyway, right? I really want to hear it now. And I can handle Rita Skeeter.”

Harry sighed heavily: “Okay, let’s get it over with, then.”

They walked back to the table, where Rita was eagerly awaiting Harry’s return. Harry paused for a moment to look at Hermione and quickly mouthed, _You owe me._ Then, he sat across from Rita with a look of determination that he hoped looked much stronger than he felt and said, “Alright, I’ll do it. Fire away, Rita.”

“Excellent, Harry,” Rita said with her sickening grin. “Now, let’s start with what happened after you went into that maze.”

So Harry started talking. He described the maze as best he could remember, which wasn’t really all that important, except for the part where Krum was been Imperiused by the fake Moody and Cruciated Fleur in turn to make sure Harry won, but Harry had stunned him and then went on to very nearly lose to an Acromantula that he had saved Cedric from. They defeated it together, and then found themselves standing over the Triwizard Cup, arguing about which of them should have won if the Tournament had actually been fair (it was anything but), until they agreed to take it together.

“The Cup was a Portkey,” Harry said. His voice choked, and he was visibly forcing himself not to cry. Cho _was_ crying. She had never heard the details of what happened in the maze. She wasn’t sure if Cedric’s _parents_ knew as much as Harry was telling now. She couldn’t believe how noble he had been. She didn’t think she would have given up the Cup if she’d had the choice.

Seeing her distress, Harry reached under the table and took Cho’s hand in his, though it was as much for his own support as hers. “We landed in a graveyard,” he continued. “We had no idea what was going on. No one had told us the Cup was a Portkey, but then, there were a lot of things no one told us. We thought maybe it was still part of the Task…but it wasn’t…”

He took a deep breath to find his voice again. “Cedric wasn’t supposed to be there,” he said. “They’d rigged it so I’d win it alone, but we both had to be all noble and make it a tie. They weren’t expecting him. We had our wands out, and we saw someone coming towards us. We didn’t know it at the time, but it turned out to be Peter Pettigrew carrying…I don’t know, some kind of magical construct baby version of Voldemort.”

“Peter Pettigrew?” Rita interrupted. “Isn’t he dead?”

“No, he’s alive—and evil—”

“But that’s a different story,” Hermione cut in. Both Harry and Rita looked at her quizzically. “We don’t want to distract from Voldemort.”

“Hmpf. Alright, then,” Rita said. “So what did…Peter Pettigrew—and…You-Know-Who—do, Harry?”

He shuddered. This was the hardest part. “Voldemort hit me with _something_. I don’t know what it was, but I could barely move. And then Voldemort said…” Harry choked back tears again. “He said, “Kill the spare.” And…and I tried to warn him, b-but it was just too fast…I…I don’t think he ever even knew what was going on…”

Harry clamped down so hard on Cho’s hand that it hurt. Cho’s heart clenched in her chest, and the words echoed in her mind like a drumbeat: _Kill the spare_. _Kill the spare._ Cedric—her Cedric—a pureblood, and a gifted one—not that she cared, but You-Know-Who always claimed he did—and he tossed him aside like a piece of rubbish because he was in the way—or not even in the way, just not needed—not part of the plan.

Harry next explained how he had been tied to a gravestone and his blood used in a ritual that had resurrected Voldemort. The Death Eaters were summoned. He mentioned a few of them by name. Incidentally, all of them had been cleared after the last war on the grounds that they had been under the Imperius Curse. Rita pressed Harry for every detail, and he told her everything, up to how he had been forced to duel Voldemort, but had escaped. The only thing he didn’t mention was when the shades of Cedric and his parents and the others appeared. He wasn’t sure if he was going to tell Cho that at all, since it would be so hard on her, but if he did, it definitely deserved a private setting with just the two of them, not revealing it in front of a news reporter.

What Cho didn’t expect was for the story to continue on after Harry returned to Hogwarts with Cedric’s body. He’d been dragged away by the fake Professor Moody and nearly killed _again_ before Dumbledore caught up with him. Moody had been revealed as Barty Crouch Jr, a Death Eater thought to be dead. Dumbledore interrogated him with Veritaserum, and he spilt the whole story, but then, Minister Fudge showed up. Cho could see the anger in Harry’s eyes: Fudge had had Crouch Junior Kissed by a Dementor before he could officially testify to the DMLE, and he flat-out refused to believe Dumbledore that You-Know-Who was back. She was sure _that_ was all kinds of illegal.

It was a painful hour, but finally, it was over. By the end, Harry was grateful that Hermione had carefully directed Rita’s questions away from the subject of Cho. When they were done, Rita Skeeter looked up from her parchment and said, “That’s quite a story, Harry. And I think I have just about all I need. Would you like to make a final statement?”

Harry would have _liked_ to give a personal statement to Fudge just then—something like, _You think_ Dumbledore _is scary? Dumbledore has a conscience._ But he figured it would be best not to personally antagonise the man further.

Instead, he turned and gave Cho a sympathetic look, and he said, “At the end of last year, Professor Dumbledore said, 'Remember Cedric Diggory.' He said, 'Remember what happened to a boy who was good, and kind, and brave, because he strayed across the path of Lord Voldemort.' Cedric _was_ good, and kind, and brave—and smart, talented, strong, humble, and, for those who care, pureblooded. And in the end, none of it _mattered_ just because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. _That_ is what Dumbledore meant. _That_ is the enemy we’re facing. Voldemort doesn’t care who he kills, even if he says he does. He killed the best and brightest of Hogwarts for no reason at all. That’s why we need to do what is right instead of what is easy: because there _is_ no easy, not really—because Voldemort is back, and he cannot be bargained with.”

Cho was crying again. Harry kept rubbing her hand with his thumb under the table. It helped a little.

“Thank you, Harry,” Rita said. “Now…Cho, was it? Do _you_ have any comment on all this—?”

“Cho’s just here for moral support,” Hermione cut in. “You have what you need, Rita. Thank you for coming.”

Rita scowled, but she was smart enough not to push her luck. She packed up and left with a definite air of annoyance.

Once she was gone, Hermione leaned over to Harry and Cho and said, “I’ll take care of the tab, you two. I’m guessing you need to go somewhere private and talk—no, Harry, don’t argue. I’ve got this covered. You just see to Cho.”

Seeing she wasn’t about to back down, he nodded and led Cho out of the pub. She walked beside him down the street, clutching his hand in a death grip and seemingly not trusting herself to speak.

“Do you…do you want to go somewhere…private?” Harry stammered. He thought about where they could actually _go_. His first instinct was the Shrieking Shack, but he couldn’t get into that place from the outside. But another idea struck him. “I know a place,” he said.

“Y-you do? Cho said in a barely audible voice.

“Yeah.”

“O-k-kay.”

Harry led her to Honeydukes, which made very little sense since it was very crowded, unless he was going to buy her chocolates. She eyed him sceptically, but he gave her a look that said _trust me_ and went inside. Actually, he decided he _would_ buy her some chocolates. He grabbed one of the typical heart-shaped boxes on the way to the counter and paid for them as quickly as he could. Cho continued to watch him with confusion, but he held up a finger to wait. He turned so that her body was obscuring him from most of the shop, covered his mouth, and in a gruff, Uncle Vernon-esque voice said, “Cleanup in aisle three.”

“Ugh. Again?” the clerk said, exasperated, and he came out from behind the counter. In the shuffle, Harry pulled Cho behind and below the counter and out of sight. In a flash, he opened the cellar door and pulled her inside.

“Harry?” she whispered as they descended the stairs.

“It’s okay. I’ve done this before,” he said. In the cellar, he found the trapdoor, tapped his wand to it three times, and whispered, “ _Dissendium_.”

The trapdoor opened, revealing a long, dark stairway.

“Harry, what is this?”

“Secret passage back to the castle. It comes out on the third floor behind the statue of the one-eyed witch. _Lumos_.” The passage lit up. “I hope you don’t mind. It’s the most secluded way back.”

“Erm…alright,” Cho agreed. She immediately conjured a will-o’-the-wisp that floated ahead of them and lit up the passage much brighter than wandlight alone. They descended the staircase—several hundred steps. It went as deep underground as the castle was high. Cho continued to watch her date nervously, unsure of what to think. Things had seemed so simple this morning, but the range of emotions she’d felt in the last few hours was staggering. She barely knew where to begin sorting it out.

Cho still didn’t fully understand why Harry didn’t want to talk about it—she just didn’t see things the same way he did—she didn’t have the same upbringing. But she’d have to be blind to miss how much it was hurting him. Merlin, it felt like a knife twisting in her own chest, and as for Harry, to look at him, it was even worse. She didn’t truly realise what she was putting him through until it was over.

“Harry…” she said slowly. He half-turned towards her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t believe you when you said how hard it would be. I should’ve listened.”

“Well…you listen more than most people have this year,” Harry said. _Including Dumbledore_. “I wasn’t trying to make it harder for you or anything—”

“I know. I could see it in your eyes.”

He leaned closer of his own accord, and she happily supported part of his weight with her shoulder. They walked on in silence a short way farther, but Harry soon slowed and eventually stopped. She turned and looked him in the eyes, seeing the pain that was still there.

“It still hurts,” he whispered. At once, Cho silently wrapped her arms around him. “I try not to think about it and worry about what comes next instead,” he continued, “but I can still see his face.”

Cho shuddered against him. “Me too,” she whispered back.

“Everyone keeps telling me it wasn’t my fault, but it’s hard…”

“I know,” she said. Harry paused in surprise. Everyone else, as well-meaning as they were, tried to dismiss this idea from his mind. Cho was the first person who actually told him she understood. “Sometimes, I wonder if there’s anything I could’ve done,” she continued. “I know he entered the Tournament partly to impress me.”

Harry refrained from saying that he would have done the same if he were of age. “Maybe, but that was his own choice,” he replied softly. “I was trying to _make_ him take the Cup. I _knew_ I didn’t deserve it, help or no help, because I wasn’t supposed to be in the damn thing in the first place.”

“But you didn’t know what was going on. You couldn’t have known what would happen.”

“I know. But it doesn’t make me feel any better. I actually kind of _wanted_ to win the Tournament once I saw I had a chance. Now, I wish I would’ve been selfish enough to take the trophy for myself like he said.”

Cho didn’t know what to say to that, so she just held Harry a little closer and patted him on the back. The whole thing was like a sick joke. If Harry hadn’t been so noble, he would have gone to the graveyard alone, and Cedric would have lived. If Cedric had been the selfish one, he would have gone to the graveyard alone and died there, but at least Voldemort wouldn’t be back yet, and Harry wouldn’t be getting screwed over by the Ministry. Instead, they both had to be good, selfless people, and for each of them, the one they were trying to help came off the worse for their trouble.

It was hard to believe she’d felt jealous for Harry a few hours ago. Had she really been irrational about it? She hadn’t thought so at the time. And after all, Harry spent way more time around Hermione Granger than any other girl, and then there was that article Rita Skeeter wrote about the love triangle between the two of them and Viktor Krum… _alleged_ love triangle, rather. Their lunch together had changed her perspective. Now, Granger was leading Rita Skeeter around by the nose, wielding a kind of power that a lot of girls would kill for, and yet, she was apologetic for interrupting their date, and she protected Harry and Cho from the woman’s gossip. It also didn’t hurt that Harry claimed she was like a sister to him, which was starting to look true.

They started walking again. It was unnerving down here. The tunnel was long, dark, and winding, but Cho’s will-o’-the-wisp kept them in a constant soft light. Cho’s spirits were lifted some as she realised how much Harry… _respected_ Cedric, she supposed was the word. They weren’t all that close in life, but they could have been friends in time.

“Thank you for letting me come with you, Harry,” she said.

“What?” he asked in confusion.

“To the meeting?”

“Oh, right. Well, I told you I wanted to spend the day with you. And I’m glad you were there, too. I’m not sure I could’ve done it on my own,” he said. Cho knew that well. She remembered how tight he had been holding her hand.

“I just wish I could do more,” he said softly. “I feel…I feel so powerless.” He could barely whisper his frustration.

“I know. Umbridge has really made your life hell this year, hasn’t she?”

“It’s a lot more than just Umbridge,” he growled. “It’s everything. I just feel so angry all the time. It’s not even about the Quidditch ban or the detentions or Dumbledore ignoring me or those stupid Educational Decrees. Voldemort’s back! More people are going to die, and everything the Ministry is doing is just making it worse! And I feel like I can’t _do anything_!”

“You _are_ doing something, Harry. You started the D.A., and you gave that interview.”

He shook his head: “Yes, I know, but it’s not going to be enough. The D.A. is just to get people to where Defence class _should_ have got them anyway to be able to defend themselves. It’s great, but we’re not going to beat Voldemort with thirty kids. And I _hope_ the interview will convince people to prepare for themselves, but we’re never _really_ going to get anywhere unless the Ministry puts the Aurors on the case.”

Cho shivered. She was acutely aware of how bad it was that Voldemort was back, of course, but she hadn’t fully registered until now how much worse it was that the Ministry was burying its collective heads in the sand. In fact, with Umbridge actively discouraging and even obstructing students from learning Defence, she was doing everything she could to make it worse. More people were going to die for not being able to defend themselves, and it was personally on that woman’s head. Suddenly, Harry’s fury, and his reputed outburst in his first Defence class, made a lot more sense. It made Cho’s blood boil just thinking about it. And to think she had been more worried about passing her final exams.

“I’m with you, Harry,” she said suddenly with a fierceness he hadn’t seen from her before. She gripped his hand tighter. “We may not be able to stop Umbridge, but I’m with you to make her job as hard as possible.”

Harry stopped and turned to face Cho, and he saw her in a new light. She really understood him, he thought. There were so few people who did right now. Suddenly, those other couples back in Madam Puddifoot’s didn’t seem so intimidating after all. Overcome by gratitude—and maybe something more—he leaned in and kissed her.

Then, he flinched back as if he’d been bitten, worried he’d bollocksed the whole thing up.

Cho stared at him in wide-eyed shock for several moments, but then, slowly, she began to smile.

“Er…Thank you, Cho, that means a lot,” he said, blushing so hard that she could see it even in the dim tunnel. “I’m sorry I ruined our date.”

“You didn’t ruin it, Harry. We both needed this.”

“Yeah. Maybe. Still, having to do it in front of Rita Skeeter…”

“Well, yeah, that could’ve gone better…” Cho said. She hesitated at what she really wanted to tell him, but he’d been so open with her, she felt she had to clear the air. She worked up her courage and said, “You know, I’d been feeling really guilty—it sounds awful, but I felt guilty because I liked you. I liked you even when I was still with Cedric. I was in love with him, but I still thought you were a good guy. It wasn’t just the Boy-Who-Lived thing, either. You’re a great Quidditch player, and you always try to be nice and courteous. And then after…” She choked a little. “After Cedric died…it was like it was too easy to go over to you. Like I was being a terrible girlfriend to move on so fast.”

Harry really hoped Cho wasn’t about to fall apart like she had that morning. Merlin’s beard, she could turn on a sixpence. He was rubbish at trying to figure out girls already, and she seemed to want to make everything more complicated when she got like this.

But Cho kept it together this time. “The thing is,” she continued, “hearing you say all that, I understand, now. I know Cedric wouldn’t want me to be in mourning all year on his account. He’d want me to be happy…Harry, I really do like you…and…I think we can make this work.” She whispered the last bit and leaned in to Harry. They kissed, and it was nothing like the wet, tear-stricken kiss they had shared in the Room of Requirement, or the awkward, unexpected kiss Harry had given her. This one was confident and filled with potential.

“I’d like that Cho,” Harry said, smiling broadly. “Happy Valentine’s Day.”


End file.
